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Being a gardener

HOTBIN is a gardener’s companion. Gardeners are passionate about planting, experimenting, being outdoors, watching their work come to life, creating beauty. Every gardener has a personal story.

This story is shared by Diana, a gardener in Geneva.

Being a gardener

I’ve considered myself a gardener all my life, ever since I was given a packet of seeds at the age of 9. I felt I knew how to garden, even as my young grandson says he knows too. My son once wrote on his CV that he was a gardener. I was surprised by that. Why do we and maybe all gardeners have this sense? Is it in our genes, this inherent understanding?  

My hands-on life as a gardener (not to be confused with poring over gardening magazines, keeping up on topics on different websites and blogs or watching my favorite gardening programs) begins in early spring every year, even a bit earlier than spring and I try and tell myself it’s too early to start.  But try as I will, I can’t stop myself from sowing seeds. First in the germinator, then getting them outside before they’re too leggy.  Soon, my balcony is too crowded because it is way too early to set them out.  I must wait until the air is a bit warmer, the days longer.

I know this and yet, every year, if I can, I start too soon.  This is definitely not listening to my convictions, but it is listening to something: possibly just my eagerness to get the season going and push it on to full production.

Sometimes, it is not too serious a mistake.  My marigold seedlings are sturdy and strong. Others like tender courgettes and pumpkins hate being started so early and often benefit from direct planting (at the right time).   These plants don’t like getting transplanted and sometimes just sit there silently, not even trying to grow.  I think I have learned their seeds are better off being put directly into the ground to adapt to the conditions in their own way.  It reminds me I am also a gardener to learn the ways of patience.  

Nature is different every year, as evidenced by the way that some vegetables, which thrived last summer, haven’t this year. Spring can arrive late, it can be too hot too soon. Yet other plants that didn’t do so well the year before seem to benefit from some unidentifiable factor and have the chance to shine this year.  If I look at the neighboring garden plots, I can see it seems to be the same for the plants over there too.  This is not the year of tomatoes or the year of peppers and it is not what we expected given last year’s crops

But I have learned from gardening and my plants year after year. Raspberries like a feed of compost in early spring, but peas don’t. My sweet peas like to be sown in late summer and autumn. They fare better, are hardier and produce better crops.  If spring turns quickly into summer, their season isn’t long, while if there are gentle spring rains, the beautiful flowers open and perfume the air with their sweet smell.  My spinach set out in fall produces a first crop and then starts up again beautifully in the spring until it’s too hot.

Gardening and planting is a balancing act. There is always the right time, right place, right soil to think about. It’s all about having a go and feeling you are part of the cycle. Strangely enough, I also feel the need to plant when a storm is coming – witch blood in my veins or something else? Mistakes are made, but seeds are cheap.  Here, there is a lesson in listening and acting at the right time.  

Gardening is a lesson in humility, discovering that we can’t always control everything. It can be hard, disappointing, worrying, but we may discover that plants will often look after themselves if we simply provide the basics.

It’s not always a joy, struggling to get it right, tense about whether the seeds will come up, worried about the lack of rain, but it does teach one (if one listens!) to observe and be in the garden with a light touch, not being too quick to intervene, taking the time rather to pay attention to the bigger picture and so, if perhaps we don’t get the plants we wanted or when we wanted, we should see the bigger picture maybe… being outside, hands in the soil, learning, helping and appreciating the simple pleasures that gardening definitely brings.  If one regards the successes one has and doesn’t bemoan what he or she had expected, a gardener’s life can be satisfying and even much more.

 

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